[OSM-talk] new logo

Kai Krueger kakrueger at gmail.com
Sun May 16 20:58:45 BST 2010


>He's just pointing out what I did a few months back - the design, usability
and aesthetic of OSM is a big mess.

>My vote is that we just put him in charge of fixing it, but I don't really
want another fight with all of >those who know little about, er, design,
usability or aesthetic. If we spent 10% of the time that's gone >in to
making the map call C++ or making potlatch look like Windows 3.1 instead of
looking like >Windows 3.0... on just turning over some of these aspects to a
design czar, it would have a much, >much larger effect on bounce rate, data
entered, project visibility, user happiness...

Perhaps I am too much of a geek my self, but I some how can't see changing a
logo or design will get us masses of new users. Not with all the other
usability issues still present.  At least I can't remember the last time I
though: "Oh, this is a really amazing project! The best thing ever. But
given the logo isn't quite ideal, I am not going to contribute to the
project...". That doesn't mean that changing the logo might not be a bad
idea or that the current logo is perfect. I just don't think that the _logo_
is a particularly pressing matter and thus does have the time to go through
a larger (and admittedly slow and painful) community process to see what the
best solution is and if it is worth giving up the current logo and loosing
the associated "corporate branding"    


>And yes I know what I wrote on the wiki about JFDI back in 1987 or
whatever. But we have these >walls that we didn't have then. If you want to
get a sweeping design done it will take a herculean >effort because there's
so much fight on this list on even whether good design is a good thing, or
>whether more users is a good thing, or you have to write everything the
'right' way... and you, >Frederik jump on the guy because he doesn't know
much about the project? That's actually a pretty >good thing. He doesn't
know he has to be friends with Tom to get something deployed, he doesn't
>know he'll have to fight Matt being defensive about his logo, he doesn't
know all the political shit that >is getting in the way of moving forward in
a meaningful way.

I would suggest to anyone who does care about usability (and I hope people
do), to look at the wiki. Imho the front page still has a reasonable clean
design and appropriate amount of information, but already the next link down
it rapidly degrades in quality to not really being usable any more.

For example I would guess one of the first links a new user would click on
is the "Beginners Guide", probably in the expectation to find out what the
project is about, what they can do with it, why they personally would
benefit from the project and how they can then contribute back. However,
what they are presented on the English version is let's say "less than
ideal". Neither does it explain the project as a whole particularly well,
nor does it link to all the wonderful wealth of resources available that
make OSM a great ecosystem and give plentiful reasons to put in the effort
to overcome the learning curve inherent in OSM. In fact it doesn't even
really achieve the one thing it does try to do which is to give an easy
introduction to editing in OSM in any way a newbie would feel comfortable
with. On top its design is I think fair to say even worse than that of the
logo or the front page. (without wanting to offend the people who have
contributed to the beginners guide so far). Other pages linked from the main
wiki not addressing power mappers aren't often any better.

There, we really could use some great designers, marketing and PR folk,
journalists or who ever else feels up to the task of presenting OSM to the
newbie in an appealing and accurate way to make sure they understand how the
project works and how they can contribute. 

And the best thing is, it is a wiki! So you don't need to be friends with
TomH to get it deployed, or argue with Matt about the logo, or RichardF
about what the best language is to write Potlatch in or... You can just do
it and you are much more likely to get the gratitude of all if you do.
(Well, perhaps you need to be friends with Grant if things get out of hand
to make sure he locks down the wiki page at the right time ;-)) But I really
doubt there will be a big edit war on the wiki given the current state of
affairs with respect to our beginners documentation! 

> So, Robert Martinez, I salute you for pushing on. Things have gotten old
> and crusty here, and it needs some designers with their heads screwed on.
> Nobody means to me horrible to you, it's just the tone of the list
> sometimes and people don't like change. If you want some real fun go read
> the legal list archives and look how long it takes to make anything
> happen.

Well perhaps a large crowd sourced project isn't the best platform if you
want revolutionary change. If there isn't an absolute necessity for a step
change, you are best off with small incremental changes in the right
direction.  (Just like you don't go into a country from the outside to
revolutionize its political system... ;-)) 

And you can incrementally change a logo too, as Matt has shown and perhaps a
more compelling example Google (
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/google-design-turned-up-notch.html ) 

> And you can squabble all you want people, but in the mean time waze is
> kicking our ass. I wonder how many Frederik's they have at waze writing
> essays on why design is bad and we don't need new users.

Not in the country that Frederik lives in, no... ;-) 

> Oh, I guess I do want this fight again.

My suggestion again would be to have a fight with the wiki newbe
documentation instead. At least that would be more productive as it might
actually lead to something

> Yours &c.
> Steve

Kai

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